THE BOOK

Retro: The Culture of Revival reveals the surprising extent to which the past is embedded in the future.

It's a book about change. In particular, it's a book about how our view of the past has changed us. The catalyst to this change is a shift in our view of progress. Traditional historical revivals built on past successes, using the past as a foundation that could be improved. Retro has demythologized the past. It quotes past styles with an unsentimental nostalgia. And retro challenges positivist views of technology, industry, and, most of all, of progress itself. It gently nudges us away from older ideas of 'Modernity' and toward an uncharted future. The culture of revival has changed, but so have we.

THE TERM

'Retro' has crept into daily usage over the past thirty years. But there have yet been few attempts to define it. Half-ironic, half-longing 'retro' considers the recent past with an unsentimental nostalgia. It doesn't bother with tradition and doesn't try to reinforce social values. Instead, it often suggests a form of subversion while sidestepping historical accuracy.

CONTENTS

Introduction: Remembering When We Were Modern

A Word with Many Meanings | The Deviant Revival | The New Revivalism: An Unsentimental Nostalgia | The Future That Never Was | The Retro-Garde

When Art Nouveau Became New Again

The 1900 Style(s) | From 'Fantastic Malady' to 'Neo-Liberty' | Form and Reform | The Nouveau Market | Nouveau Frisco

Moderne Times

Modern Meets Moderne | The New Art Nouveau | Pop Went the World's Fair | More Modern Than We Feel Now | History as a Hall of Mirrors | The Deco Echo in Popular Culture

Fabricated '50s

Teddy Boys and Twiggy | 'Innocence' as a Commodity | Reinventing the Day Before Yesterday | 'Mode Rétro'| Fallout From the '50s

The Lure of Yesterday's Tomorrows

Warming Up the Cold War | 'Jive Modernism' and the Women Who Saved New York | Retrofuturism